Aquinas oniusand Hart on Rights: A Response to Tierney

Abstract

Of course Aquinas uses the termiusin an “objective” sense, to mean “the just,” “the just thing,” or the “just state of affairs” called for by the virtue of justice. But he also usesiusin a “subjective” sense, to refer to a right or rights that someone, the “subject,”has. Brian Tierney fails to see this, for three reasons, I think: though he has been an effective critic of Villey's historical analyses, he now seems gripped by Villey'snon sequitur(if objective then not subjective); he looks to Aquinas's “phrases,” “usages,” and “terms,” sometimes neglecting the arguments in which Aquinas uses them; and, at least in this new essay, he employs a simplistic understanding of the modern idea of rights.

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